146 A UDREY D ENTITH Gender equity in education evolved from political work that sought overall to illuminate gender bias and widen access for girls and young women in school programs. In the USA, the effort was fueled by the publication in the early 1990s of the groundbreaking report, How Schools Shortchange Girls, which exposed wide systematic inequities in girls education in American schools (American Association of University Women, [AAUW] 1992). It detailed evidence of biased teaching prac ‐ tices, curricular omissions, sexual harassment, unfair testing procedures, and limited access to or lower participation of girls in certain school sub ‐ jects and programs (AAUW, 1992, 1998; Bryan, 2000; Sadker & Sadker, 1994). Gender equity advocates have long targeted intervention efforts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs in secondary and higher education. This effort was considerably hastened in the early 1990s when the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded more than 90 million dollars for programs and research in this area (AAUW, 2004). Their efforts continue to attend to the persistent shortage of women and girls in STEM fields and the need for increases in girls and womens participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Spears, Dyer, Franks, & Montelone, 2004). Underlying this push for girls participation in STEM is the central belief that successful academic engagement in these fields of study in high school and college may lead to more lucrative careers for women. Such efforts would result in wider career opportunities for women, a reduction in the persistent salary gap between the sexes, and more female representation in top management (Betz, 1994; National Science Foundation, 1996). In truth, girls and womens participation in STEM has increased in recent years as a result of these efforts (Darke, Clewell, & Sevo, 2002). Girls are as likely as boys to enroll in advanced life sciences such as biology and anatomy or advanced mathematics classes. However, they are still much less likely to enroll in advanced physics or computer sciences (AAUW, 2004), and their overall achievement in all these academic areas continues to lag behind their male counterparts (AAUW, 1998, 2004).